Copenhagen now has more bikes than cars in its city centre

The numbers are out: Copenhagen’s city centre is now bustling with more bicycles than cars for the first time in history.

The city authorities have been measuring traffic entering the city centre, with 252,600 cars entering the area compared to 265,700 bikes, up by 35,080 since last year. This is the first time that there have been more bikes than cars in the city centre since the city started counting in 1970.

The increase comes after a period of significant investment in cycling by local authorities, with, according to the Copenhagenize website, 1 billion Danish krone (£120 million) put towards development of the city’s cycling infrastructure. This includes the construction of 17 bicycle bridges between 2006 and 2019 that give cyclists easy access to the city centre without having to compete with cars and other traffic.